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NEW YORK | Obsessing over calories alone has left dieters with an empty feeling.

The calorie counting that defined dieting for so long is giving way to other considerations, like the promise of more fiber or natural ingredients. That is chipping away at the popularity of products like Diet Coke, Lean Cuisine and Special K, which became weight-watching staples primarily by stripping calories from people's favorite foods.

Athens Country Club’s executive chef Chris McCook is off to Charleston, S.C., later this month to compete in the American Culinary Federation’s Southeast Region Chef of the Year.

McCook competes against three other chefs in an almost two-hour-long battle to whip up four portions of a main dish incorporating either duck, hen or chicken. If he wins, McCook moves on to compete in the national chef of the year competition, which carries a $5,000 prize. Wish him luck: the battle takes place April 27.

The Food and Drug Administration is taking steps to ensure that shoppers who buy honey are getting the real deal.

New guidance issued Tuesday would prevent food companies from adding sugar or other sweeteners to pure honey and still calling it "honey."

The agency said enforcement action is possible against U.S. food businesses or importers if companies try to cut those sweeteners into real honey and do not label the product correctly. If those sweeteners are added, the label should read "blend of sugar and honey" or "blend of honey and corn syrup."

Streets Cafe, Athens' longest-running food truck, starts a trial run for a new lunch location today at Carniceria Costa De Jalisco (140 Barber St.), and will be there through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

To make a living at farming, you’ve got to go big — Midwestern wheat field big, and not some organic “garden.”

At least that’s how one accidentally condescending air-conditioning repairman felt about the future of Front Field Farm, the six-year growing project of Jacqui and Alex Coburn in Winterville, when he came to fix the farm’s walk-in cooler.

But as Front Field expands its operation this year and next — prompting the need for a walk-in — the Coburns join an expanding list of local farms that have eclipsed any hobbyist appearances.

It might feel authentic, or some other linguistic baloney, to celebrate seasonal produce from small, local farms with somber reverence.

To roast carrots whole and serve lightly seasoned in a rustic cast iron, to chop a salad together of only crisp Mizuna greens and latterly plucked Mexican cherry tomatoes, undressed and very raw — such spare and simple preparations make for au courant Instagram action worth a tweetable blog post on the Pinterest box.